Butterfly Garden with Redemption Caterpillar Voucher

I purchased this item with trepidation after reading the reviews that the code would not work in the UK and that caterpillars could not be redeemed with a USA code if you were sent the wrong box. My daughter saved her pocket money for this after doing it at school, so we went ahead and purchased it. It arrived this morning. The leaflet inside has a special code that you enter either by post (with £2.99 to cover the shipping of the caterpillar larvae) or you can also enter it online and pay via paypal, which I did. It was VERY quick and easy, I can only assume that some people have been very unfortunate and have received USA stock by mistake, or that the newer stock is all UK butterfly garden boxes. Anyway, I have paid the fee and eagerly await the caterpillars being despatched. You can only pick from a limited list of delivery dates so be prepared to wait at least a week or more for your caterpillars to arrive. ALSO - if you want to do this, eggs are ONLY AVAILABLE in the spring and summer months so be sure you order this item at the right time otherwise it will be useless until the next butterfly season! The box only contains the butterfly net/house, a feeding pipette, and instruction booklet, as well as your unique code to redeem the caterpillars. THIS IS MADE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR! I cannot understand the bad reviews from those intellectually challenged people who seem to think LIVE animals can be kept indefinitely on a shelf until they are sold. Caterpillars life cycle takes about 5 weeks so they would be dead and gone before the kits were sold! Of course they charge a handling fee to get you fresh larvae sent out. If people cant comprehend this basic fact, maybe they don't have the requisite intelligence to be explaining life cycles to a child. Don't be disappointed to find NO LIVE INSECTS in your kit! Sheeeesh! (eye roll).... I will update this reviews when the larvae arrive! 27/07/13 - caterpillars arrived today. They are about 1cm long, black and hairy, and are in a small clear plastic cup with a lid and a cardboard sleeve that can be rotated around the cup to view the caterpillars. Already there are some silk like threads being spun at the bottom of the cup. Four of the caterpillars are very active and can clearly be seen crawling about and eating the thick jelly stuff at the bottom of the cup. The fifth caterpillar is alive but quite inactive and has not moved much. Some have even ventured to the underside of the cup lid. 31/07/13 - all five caterpillars are still alive, though the slow/inert one is still lying at the bottom of the cup not having moved much. They have more than trebled in size since they arrived, the largest one is now about 2.5 - 3cm long. The inside of the cup looks a bit gross now with all the caterpillar waste product (frass) and shed skins. since last night alone they are noticeably fatter; it's amazing just how fast they grow, there can be a marked difference between day and night. In this warmer weather the process is, according to the booklet, much faster. I'm expecting the chrysalis's to start forming over the next few days. At this point I'm hoping for 5 successful butterflies! 02/08/13 - 4 of the caterpillars are now hanging from the lid of the cup, one seems to be a bit more ahead of the others as it has already formed somewhat of a thick cocoon over itself, the others just look like they are hanging there. The fifth caterpillar is making its way to the top of the cup. I hope they all form cocoons at the same time as I don't know what to do if some have not and some have, as the instructions say you should not open the lid until all are hanging from the top (you can introduce bacteria etc into their environment otherwise). Exciting! 05/08/13 - All five caterpillars made it into the cocoon stage, but one was hanging not from the lid but from another cocoon. We opened the lid as per instructions and cleaned away the silk strands and debris (this apparently can cause the butterflies to become entangled and have deformed wings if you don't do this). The cocoon that was hanging from another cocoon, we have detached and laid on a paper towel at the bottom of the enclosure. The instructions say this is okay and it should still hatch out. We are now to wait for the cocoons to turn a very dark colour, and the butterflies are suppose to hatch the same day! This stage was quite yucky if I'm honest and may gross out a sensitive child, as there were 'bits' of old caterpillar skin and what looks like blood (its just 'meconium' according the booklet!). We now wait expectantly for our butterflies! It is interesting to note that the cocoons were shaking quite violently on their own as we were doing this, apparently this is a defence mechanism! Very strange to see. 12/08/13 - First butterfly hatched out yesterday morning. We missed the actual event but it was sitting at the bottom of the enclosure. Have put fresh cut oranges and peaches in the net, as well as some fresh flowers sprayed with 'nectar' (sugar water) as per instructions. The second butterfly hatched this afternoon, and a third looks like it is about to emerge. We have taken lots of pictures. Two down, three to go! 13/08/13 - Two hatched out yesterday afternoon after writing my update. We actually caught the second one on video emerging from its cocoon - you have to be fast because once it starts, it's out in about 5 seconds, it is not the slow process you might imagine! We were very lucky to catch it. A fair amount of red 'blood' drips from their back ends once emerged, so put your habitat on some newspaper. This morning we released all four butterflies as the fifth one was not hatched yet. We got some lovely pictures - they are happy to sit on your fingers etc as you place them on the plants. My daughter was a bit teary for a while but after explaining that her new friends needed to be free to see the world etc and that they would come back and visit her if they could, she felt a bit better. The fifth butterfly hatched in the last two hours, so he will be released this afternoon, as I feel they should not be kept in the net any longer then necessary. In summary this has been an amazing experience for both adult and child. The whole process from receiving larvae to releasing the butterflies took 17 days. I highly recommend this item, we are already thinking about doing it again next summer!

Absolutely superb present for the kids that amazes them and provides daily interest as they watch the tiny caterpillars transform into butterflies over a few weeks. The kit contains a colourful pop-up enclosure with a feeding pipette and a coded voucher to redeem for a couple of quid for 4 or 5 tiny caterpillars. They can't put live caterpillars in the box of course. The voucher must either be sent by post or the code used on the Insect Lore website. I went for the web option used PayPal and effortlessly received the caterpillars within 2 days. You are sent a small clear plastic jar with half a cm of some kind of fatty substance at the bottom. The caterpillars remain in the jar (it has tiny air holes) eating away at the fatty food and growing at an incredible pace into large, black hairy ones. No additional feeding is necessary whilst in the jar and the lid must remain tight until they form chrysalises and hang from the paper that is on the underside of the sealed lid. Then, the paper from which they all dangle must be carefully removed with them attached and pinned into the enclosure and left undisturbed until they hatch into butterflies. Place in some flowers from the garden and a bit of orange, banana or other fruit, drip some sugar water via the pipette and they'll be very happy indeed. Three days later, release into the outside provided the weather is warm. The kids were fascinated by the whole process, ran downstairs in the mornings to see the progress and took delight in observing nature so closely. I totally recommend this for any kids say aged 4+. You'll be happy to see the pleasure they get from it and somewhat chuffed as a parent (or relative) to have bought something unusual and educational. And don't worry if the caterpillars hardly move or even stay completely still for some time - that's normal. They probably need all the rest they can get - as butterflies they will cover over 3,000 miles in the 5 weeks they live!

Great product. Please note that you are still charged £3.95 for delivery for butterfly’s separately. It might be worth checking if it’s more value for money ordering direct off the site if you are not a prime member.

This was a gift for my nature loving partner for his 50th birthday. It was great from start to finish. The company kept in contact during delivery and even put off delivering the caterpillars during a heatwave to protect them. Clearly they actually care about the caterpillars welfare which is great. Due to the heat out caterpillars didn't take long to turn in to butterfly's and we ordered 2 cups (5 in each) all 10 caterpillars were successful in turning in to butterfly's. I would order more caterpillars in the future as it was so easy to do.

Pretty cool. It's genuinely impressive watching the caterpillars move through their life cycle. Worth being aware - this product comes with a voucher for the caterpillars, but you still have to pay for their 'delivery'. So you're not getting a free set of them, more half price. They don't make that clear in the description.

Great gift, my son loved this, I have kept the net and will be purchasing more calipers next summer

Brilliant. The children loved watching the caterpillars growing and changing. The company is so helpful. The service you like to receive. Top notch can't fault them.

This was greatly enjoyed by my grand children. They were able to follow the instructions and watched the chrysalis form and grow, eventually turning into butterflies. Great educational gift.

veio sem as larvas. e não consigo devolver, pois está dando erro no site e app! não comprem

Purchased for my granddaughter. She loves it. It’s a great learning tool. Certainly recommend it.

This pack came with a voucher to use to breed butterflies. The website is in Czech Republic and the voucher will not work as I am in Ireland.

Ich habe mit das Set geholt, da ich selbst einfach mal neugierig bin, wie so ein Lebenszyklus eines Schmetterlings abläuft. Kleiner Wermutstropfen: man hat die Raupen nicht mit bei, sondern muss mit einem in der Verpackung befindlichen Gutschein die Raupen in England bestellen und dafür nochmal Porto zahlen. Achtung: Für die Zahlung muß ein Paypalkonto oder eine Kreditkarte vorhanden sein! Bei der Bestellung der Raupen gibt man dann den Tag an, an dem sie verschickt(!) werden sollen. Der Versand dauert ca. 5-7 Tagen. Sind die Raupen dann da, hat man ca 7-14 Tagen, bis sie sich verpuppen und man sie mit Hilfe der kleinen Pappaufsteller in das - in der Grundpackung vorhandene - Habitat umziehen läßt. Eine Erklärung für die gesammte Zeit ist in mehreren Sprachen vorhanden. Und man erhäkt zwischendurch auch einige Mails mit Hinweisen in deutscher Sprache. Ich fand das Leben der Raupen (sogar Streitigkeiten untereinander, sowie regelmäßiges Teilhäuten) sehr spannend und habe nun seit einer guten Woche die Puppen im Habitat. Nun warte ich begierig jeden Tag drauf, das ein Schmetterling schlüpft. Damit die kleinen gleich am Anfang zu fressen haben und nicht ein paar Stunden hungern müssen (was ihnen nicht gut tut!) habe ich nun auch kleine Blumen im Habitat stehn (ausgesucht nach intensiven Recherchen im Internet was diese Raupenart für Blüten braucht). Bitte denkt dran die Schmetterlinge nicht zu lange im Habitat zu belassen sondern sie zeitig in die Natur zu entlassen. Das Habitat ist mehrfach verwendtbar, die Becher, in denen die Raupen geliefert werden und in denen sie wachsen würd ich eher nicht wieder verwenden, da in ihm die Nahrungsreste sowie Kot liegt. Raupen kann man jederzeit über die Website des Herstellers nachbeziehen. Raupen werden aber NUR während einer bestimmten Zeit verschickt, in denen weder der Transport noch die anschließende Umgebung für die Schmetterlinge zu kalt ist! Es ist daher möglich, dass der Gtuschein z.B. im Dezember nicht eingelöst werden kann. Dann einfach im April erneut versuchen. Der Support des Herstellers reagiert nur in englischer Sprache! Wer also Fragen hat, sollte daher Englisch können. Die Anfrage in Deutsch ist kein Problem nur halt die Antwort kommt in Englisch.

Bellissima esperienza